Truck Day

Not really a day at all, but sort of a big deal here in Boston, which is actually kind of silly.  If you're not from around here, truck day is the day when all the trucks pick up the equipment from Fenway and bring it down to Fort Meyers to start Spring Training.  I honestly don't know why it's such a big deal here actually.  I think it used to be that it signified the start of a new season, which meant renewed hope to win the World Series.  But now that we've won two in the past ten years, I don't think it should be such a big deal.  Then again, with everything that went on last year, any new start is a good thing for the Sox.  I will admit, I'm pretty excited for baseball to start again.  Last year I was pretty unimpressed with everything that was going on with the Red Sox.  Many of the players were acting like idiots, (not the lovable Millar idiots either), and everything that went wrong was blamed on Valentine, which I felt was unfair.  After all, he inherited a team that was falling apart, he couldn't be expected to rebuild it in one season!  I think the general feeling around Boston last year was that the Sox were digging their own grave.  I know you're not supposed to say that about your team, but when the team is acting foolish, sometimes you have to.
This year though, I am excited for the season to start.  They have a new manager, a former bench coach who worked with Francona, and some new players to freshen up the team.  I think reading Francona's book helped bring the spirit back too.  It was nice to get an inside (although biased I'm sure) point of view about the 2004 - 2012 seasons.  Now, Ryan moved here after the Sox won the World Series in 04 and he has always told me that Sox fans are the most annoying sports fans ever.  Generally I don't agree with him on issues about Boston sports fans, but the more I paid attention to the behavior of the fans in Boston, the more I had to agree.  Many Sox fans are extremely arrogant, rude, and let's face it, way to full of themselves. I'll probably be shunned for this, but I think they may be equal to Yankees fans at this point.  In fact, I think Francona said it best when he said "The Red Sox were no longer the little engine that could. They were not lovable losers. They were not Cub-like. Their fans were not needy. Hubris and arrogance became the trademarks of the Boston baseball fan".  You can argue about this all day long, but the fact is, when people, including the sports writers and team managers are noticing it, there is a problem.  
So hopefully this year will be different.  If not, then maybe the fans and the players do need to take a good look around and realize that winning two World Series does not make you a God.  
Believe it or not, I did not come here to write about the Red Sox, but once I got started it kind of got away from me.  Originally I wanted to write about my  next big running venture and my follow up from Sunday.  If i I didn't already say it, I think my next big race is going to be a half-marathon.  There's one in Newburyport in May and I think I'm doing it.  I read the description and it's a flat course, which is really the only important part of the description.  I'll be running 5/10Ks in the mean time, but I think that will be my next BIG event.  
It's funny though, what happens when you start running longer distances.  When I started, 13.1 miles seemed like an insane amount of space to cover.  Who runs 13.1 miles anyways??? But, that was back when I could barely run 3 miles without feeling like I was about to die.  Now though, after running 9, 13.1 doesn't seem so long.  After all, it's only a few extra miles right?  That's the funny thing about running.  Once you start, it is easier to keep going longer and faster.  When we all started running together, it took us roughly 50 minutes to run the 3 miles around Wakefield.  I think, aside from Cynthia, none of us had any intentions of running anything more than a 5K.  Yet, here we are, 3 months later, and I'm actually planning on running a half-marathon.  And you know what else? Running those 3 miles now is a piece of cake. Suddenly it seems silly to ever say, I don't have time, when really, all I need is 30 minutes to get in a short run.  It's strange enough to think that 3 miles now is a short run to me.  A lot of people say this, but I really can't wait for the warmer weather so I can run along the beach.  It would be nice to run from here to the Willows, but since it still gets dark so early here, it's still not doable.  Soon though!
One more thought before I go.  I've been on Twitter lately, but I just can't get into it.  However, I have noticed that a lot of people use it to attempt to talk to celebrities.  It must be so strange to be a person being bombarded by awkward pictures and messages all day long.  I'm not really sure where I'm going with this thought, it just seems really odd to me, that's all. I have no great pictures for you today, so here's a picture (or 2) of Jacoby Ellsbury, in honor of truck day.  (And before I get attacked for violating internet copyrights or whatnot, yes, I took one of these pictures from a website.  Here's a hint.  It's not the one of his back.)

This is clearly an old picture, he has since changed his number, but that's him, 46.